Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

THE REASON FOR DOUBT is taken from this: science that does not resolve as far as principles known per se, or cannot prove them through another science, merely believes those principles; therefore it does not in fact share in evidence and certainty, and so in fact is not science.

The consequence is clear, because evidence is obtained through demonstration or resolution into principles known per se. Therefore, if an inferior science stops at a proposition it cannot further prove because it is not continued into a superior science, nor does it resolve by itself into principles known per se, it lacks evidence and consequently cannot derive evidence for its other conclusions, since it lacks evidence for its principles.

This is confirmed because in any science, if someone forgets the middle term by which a conclusion is proved, science is destroyed in him, since he has neither evidence nor proof. And if, per impossibile, someone lost the habit of principles, science could not remain because the principles would no longer remain. Similarly, then, one who does not possess the subalternating science, from which principles are supplied to a subalternated science, cannot have the true nature of subalternated science, because he lacks evidence for the principles and the middle term. The authority of St Thomas, De veritate, q. 14, a. 9¹, also supports this: “Whatever is known properly by science is known through reduction to first principles, which are immediately available to the intellect.” Therefore one who does not know by reduction to first principles—as a subalternated science does when it is not continued into the subalternating science—will not properly have science. Likewise, in Sentences III, d. 33, q. 1, a. 2, quaestiunc. 4², he says that “if there were some science that could not be reduced to principles naturally known, it would not be of the same species as another science.” But a subalternated science without continuation to the subalternating science cannot be reduced to principles known per se. Therefore when it is not thus continued, it does not have the nature of science.

NEVERTHELESS, WE MUST SAY that the subalternated science is the same specific habit whether it is continued into the subalternating science or not; yet, on the part of the subject, it has the imperfect state of science for as long as, in fact, it cannot resolve into principles known per se through the subalternating science.

This conclusion is common among Thomists. See Cajetan, Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 2; Master Soto, book I of the Posterior Analytics, q. 5; Sanchez, book VII, q. 2; Araujo, Metaphysics I, q. 4, a. 1; and the Carmelite Course here, disp. 19, q. 3. It is taken from St Thomas, Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 2, where he unqualifiedly calls that which is subalternated a science. In De veritate, q. 14, a. 9, ad 3³, he grants that “one who has subalternated science does not perfectly attain the nature of knowing unless his cognition is in some way continued with the cognition of the one who has the subalternating science. Nevertheless, the inferior knower is not said to have science of what he presupposes, but of the conclusions that necessarily follow from the principles presupposed.” See also more fully Opusc. 70, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5, 6, and 7⁴, and To Hannibald, I, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1⁵, where he teaches that “the proximate principle of the first sciences is the intellect; for those sciences that presuppose their principles from others, the proximate principle is belief in the principles presupposed from others, while their first principle is the intellect. The certainty of these sciences is perfected, however, when by resolution they reach the intellect of the first principles themselves.”

The reason for the conclusion is that the habit of subalternated science, even when it is not continued into the subalternating science, by its very nature demands and inclines toward being continued with it. Therefore in itself it is a scientific habit, insofar as it has an inclination to full evidence through continuation with the superior science.

The consequence is clear: if the habit itself demands continuation with the subalternating science, then when it is actually continued, it is not destroyed but perfected, nor is another habit generated; rather that very habit is continued with the superior. Otherwise it would seek that continuation in vain, if it could not itself be continued with the subalternating science and, when continuation occurred, a new habit of a distinct species—scientific, whereas it had not been scientific before—were generated. Thus there would never be a subalternated habit that demanded continuation with the subalternating science. But if it is the same habit that is continued and discontinued from it, then even when it is not actually continued, it is science by its inclination and root.

The antecedent is proved as follows: one who acquires the habit of a subalternated science separately from the subalternating science proceeds from principles manifested in the subalternating science, and thus presupposed to be evident. Therefore by its nature that habit inclines and calls for continuation with the manifestation of the subalternating science. Otherwise it would not by itself proceed from principles manifested by that science if it did not intrinsically incline toward those principles precisely as manifested by the superior science. If they are in fact manifested to it, this is most in keeping with its nature; it therefore has an inclination toward evidence, although on the subject’s side it does not make that evidence explicit, owing to the lack of continuation with the superior science. A habit could not incline toward such evident principles if it were not science, since a habit intrinsically lacking evidence cannot incline toward evidence or seek it.

As Cajetan rightly observes in the cited place, subalternated science may be said not to be science because it lacks the perfect nature of science, that is, its state; nor is it an intellectual virtue as to its state. It is one as to inclination and substance. Just as a virtue remains in the substance of virtue in a sinner, although by nature it seeks continuation with the ultimate good end and does not then have that continuation, so when a science or habit has an inclination toward evidence and can be perfected through it, it has the nature of science as to substance: by its inclination and root it seeks evidence for the principles, even though an impediment on the subject’s side prevents it from possessing that evidence. A sign is that the faith by which one believes these principles to be evident in a superior science is not the reason for inferring conclusions in the inferior science by virtue of belief or fallible authority, but because those conclusions presuppose evidence in the superior science. Theology excels in this respect: it relies on infallible faith, and thus finds principles actually certain in faith itself, not merely presupposed and radical, though not evident, for evidence is presupposed in the superior science.

If you ask how subalternated science can be certain and evident as to substance and yet not give the subject that denomination, the answer is that it gives the denomination of science radically and as to substance, but not as to state, because the subject is impeded by lacking continuation with the superior science. Conversely, faith or opinion can lose extrinsic fear, that is, actual and denominative hesitation of the intellect, as will be said in the next article, while remaining intrinsically fallible in itself.

TO THE OPPOSING ARGUMENT it is answered that science which does not resolve into first principles either radically, by its inclination, or actually, according to its state, has no true nature of science, but rests on belief in the authority of another. If, however, it has radically and by inclination the demand to resolve into first principles, even though in fact it does not resolve because continuation with the subalternating science is lacking, it is nevertheless science. Per se it does not rest on belief; belief merely supplies the place of the superior science. By its very nature it seeks resolution into the superior science, continuation with its evidence, and perfection there.

As to the proof, evidence is obtained through proofs and resolution into principles according to each science’s mode. Sometimes evidence is only radical, according to an inclination toward continuation with the superior science; sometimes it is actual and perfect, through proofs actually resolved and continued into the superior science. Therefore a failure of proof that is only on the side of the knowing subject, not on the side of the science itself and its inclination, does not remove the nature of science essentially and intrinsically, but only as to its state.

To the confirmation, if someone forgets the middle term in such a way that it remains neither in himself nor in another thing into which he by nature seeks and inclines to be continued, he absolutely loses the science, because he retains neither the premises nor their proof. But if he retains the premises or the proving middle term of the conclusion, while presupposing the proof as evident in another, superior science and intrinsically inclining to possess it, then science is lacking only as to its state, not as to the intrinsic nature and inclination of the scientific habit that seeks such evidence. Likewise, if someone lost the habit of first principles but retained propositions knowable through that habit, while not knowing the explanation of the terms and so not knowing those propositions as self-evident to him, he would truly possess science, because he would proceed from propositions self-evident absolutely and in themselves, although accidentally, for lack of that explanation, he would lack actual, term-based evident knowledge. This does not happen so easily, however, because the propositions of first principles immediately become self-evident.

As to the passages of St Thomas, he denies only that subalternated science is perfect science, not that it is absolutely science on the side of its intrinsic inclination, since in the places cited above he absolutely calls it science, in the sense that it is intrinsically distinct from a habit lacking evidence, in which no inclination toward evidence for principles remains. He speaks in this sense in Sentences III when he says that what cannot be reduced to first principles is not science. The phrase “cannot” means cannot by inclination and root, rather than cannot by actual evidence. For what in no way can have evidence is only a habit without evidence, such as faith and opinion, and so it is not science univocally. Subalternated science is said to be perfected in the vision of the thing because it does not have the perfect state of science without that vision; yet its ability to be perfected by it is a sign that it is intrinsically and substantially science, since a habit lacking evidence cannot be perfected in the vision of the thing.

From these points it is inferred that the Thomists rightly defend the claim that the Theology possessed in this life remains in the homeland and becomes evident there, because by its inclination and intrinsic root it seeks evidence and continuation with the subalternating science, which is beatific science; while on the way, accidentally, it uses faith as supplying and presupposing principles that are evidently known in the superior science.